An anonymous person known only as “Surveillance Camera Man” is sparking controversy by filming people in public and private spaces without asking for their permission. Clever way of highlighting privacy issues or just intentionally provoking people?

Why is it that hardly anyone minds being on camera wherever they go, but whenever there’s a face attached to the camera, everyone becomes agitated. Whether we’re walking on the street, going into a bank or at school, there are all these cameras watching our every move, and yet we choose to ignore them. But if an actual person is holding the camera, we feel like they’re violating our privacy. This is what Surveillance Camera Man, an anonymous man from Seattle has been proving with his series of videos posted on YouTube. Granted, sometimes he’s actually doing his filming on private property, but even when he’s filming people in parking lots or on the street without saying a word to them, you can see it’s making them very uncomfortable. Most claim he’s violating their privacy, forgetting they’re in public places, and some even lash out at the camera or call the police. However you feel about Surveillance Camera Man and his approach, you have to admit it’s darn interesting project.

Although no one knows his real identity, going by the locations in the videos, he’s from Seattle. His in-your-face experiments have already sparked debates on social media platforms like Reddit and Metafilter, with some people even thinking of doing the same thing in their cities, to address the issue of privacy. Some are saying people in the videos feel targeted, unlike when they’re watched by CCTV cameras, while combat the argument saying facial recognition technology is nearly perfected, allowing the state to target you whenever they want. Just that it’s some guy in an office miles away watching your every move, instead of standing five feet from you.